PALO ALTO “”mdash; So this is why coach Ben Howland was hired
three years ago: To celebrate the Pac-10 championship Saturday on
the opposing team’s home court, where the only cheers in the
building come from the scant number of Bruin fans seated high up in
the rafters.
It might seem like such a foreign idea to some Bruin fans (the
team’s last Pac-10 title was in 1997), but these Bruins
expected it all along.
“It’s a step in the right direction, but we expected
this,” point guard Jordan Farmar said. “We’re not
going to get a banner in the gym for this one. We have other goals
and better things planned for ourselves.”
It might be easy for Farmar, who is just a sophomore, to
underestimate, but it wasn’t such an easy road for some of
the Bruins on this team.
Senior center Ryan Hollins went through two of the worst years
in UCLA basketball history, and suffered through numerous position
battles during his younger years.
Redshirt senior guard Cedric Bozeman went through several
surgeries and knee braces just to get back to this team and enjoy
this moment.
And finally there is sixth-year senior guard Janou Rubin, who
had been through two redshirt seasons and considered transferring
midway through his tenure as a Bruin.
They all put the finishing touch on their regular-season Bruin
careers ““ Rubin doused coach Howland with water as he walked
into the locker room.
“It’s huge, man,” Hollins said. “Every
year, we come in with the same goal, and that’s to win the
Pac-10 title. At times, it was easy to lose sight of that. But you
just have to keep the perseverance, and this year shows what that
can do for you.”
For Bozeman, the title was a realization of something he
expected a long time ago.
“Coming in, you were expected to win the Pac-10 every
year,” Bozeman said. “People expect a lot out of you,
and sometimes you just need to be patient.
“This team came together, and busted their butts every day
in practice. It just feels great to finally get it done.”
But it wasn’t just the seniors who understood the
significance of winning the Pac-10 title.
One of sophomore guard Arron Afflalo’s main reasons for
coming to UCLA was that he wanted to take on the challenge of
turning the Bruin program around.
“That’s everything to me,” said Afflalo, who
was Howland’s first recruit. “You play for history.
It’s about putting a great program in its rightful place.
I’m just glad we’re doing this collectively.”
Now the question that lies ahead for the Bruins is whether they
can take the Pac-10 title and advance deep into the NCAA
Tournament, where they will ultimately be judged.
For the seniors, it’s also about developing an aura for
the younger Bruins. They want to make them expect a Pac-10 title
every season.
“There is no reason why we can’t continue to do
this,” Hollins said. “The guys are growing up, and you
see the maturity in them. They understand the level at which a
program like UCLA should be.”
From the look and sound of it, it seems that Saturday’s
Pac-10 title was just the first step in the return of the
prominence of UCLA basketball.
Something any longtime Bruin can only ask for.
E-mail Parikh at sparikh@media.ucla.edu.